On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 4:47 PM, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Incivility should not be met with more incivility; this merely perpetuates and expands to problem.
Certainly. However, proposals to treat incivility as a bright-line auto-blockable offense, like 3RR, have the problems that the bright line isn't really all that bright or that definite. They become very game-able, as well; if such a rule was instituted, being treated uncivilly is something every canny edit warrior will be playing for, since it gets their opponent blocked. Expect it to encourage a hyper-sensitivity to incivility and even more attempts to label honest disagreement and argument as uncivil.
Especially, I'd expect, there will be much screaming that criticizing anyone's behavior is uncivil, which is a problem we already face. Sometimes the person really IS the problem, and we should not outlaw mentioning that.
-Matt